Apple’s Q1 09 call (sort of) addresses Steve Jobs, Apple TV, more

Apple held its first quarter conference call for 2009 following the release of …

By now, you have likely already heard about Apple's first fiscal quarter of 2009 financial results. Apple sold approximately 2.52 million Macs, 22.73 million iPods, and 4.36 million iPhones--all up year-over-year, but all down (except for iPods) from last quarter. Check our aforelinked front page coverage for more details on the nitty gritty.

During the subsequent conference call, however, Apple's executives took questions from the analyst community and revealed various tidbits of information that will be of interest to many Apple fans.

Steve Jobs

Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes absolutely could not resist asking about Steve Jobs' health, resulting in Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer reciting to him the hard company line: Jobs will remain involved in major strategic decisions while Tim Cook will be in charge of day-to-day operations during Jobs' absence.

COO Tim Cook chimed in, however, to emphasize that Apple has a strong executive team and a 35,000-strong team of employees who are "wicked smart." He said that the values of the company are "extremely well-entrenched," noting that Apple only participates in markets where it believes it can make a significant contribution. "We believe in saying 'no' to thousands of projects so we can focus on the ones that are truly meaningful for us," Cook said. "Frankly, we don't settle for anything less than excellence" in every part of the company, and "Regardless of who is in what job, those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well." Well, that's that.

Netbooks and cheap Macs

Apple's execs acknowledged once again that they are "watching" the sub-$500 market when it comes to the Mac, but that there were no current plans (public plans, anyway) to join in on the party. "Our view is that the products in there are products that are much less powerful than what customers want," was the standard line out of Apple. "We don't think people are gonna be pleased with those types of products. We've watched; we've got some ideas. But some of those products are inferior and don't provide the kind of experience users are happy with."

Apple TV

As usual, Apple declined to give specific numbers when it comes to Apple TV sales. Tim Cook did acknowledge, however, that the Apple TV saw a "tremendous pickup year-over-year." He said that unit sales were up almost 3 times versus the year-ago quarter, though the company still considers it a hobby. "We will continue to invest in it because we fundamentally believe there's something there in the future," Cook said.

Snow Leopard

Apple had "no comments to share today" regarding the company's next major version of Mac OS X. "We are very excited about the next release, but we do not have a specific launch date to announce today."

Looking ahead...

Looking ahead to the March quarter, Apple said that visibility is extremely low in the current economic environment (translation: "We have no idea what customers are going to do so we can't predict very well how sales are going to be"). However, the company is still shipping "the best products in our history," and it expects revenue to be between $7.6 and $8 billion for the quarter. "We are fortunate to have the world's best customers and employees, especially in these difficult times."

The call is wrapping up soon, but will be available for replay on Apple's website for a couple of weeks if you're interested in listening to all the details.